“Well, that’s horrifying. I dare say the plants beneath her feet withered and died. Tears of pure vitriol. So who’s this fellow with the yellow hair, and how long has that been going on? I have to say, I’m offended that you never tried to have one off with me. You know perfectly well that my tastes are expansive. I’m wounded, I tell you, wounded.”
“Are you coming back from the dead to complain that I’m fucking men who aren’t you?” asked Kit in disbelief. “Are you serious, now?”
“Well, yes. It does need to be addressed.”
“No, it bloody well does not. I can go to bed with who I please, without having to explain myself to you.”
“You seldom go to bed with anybody. Is that because you don’t care for women?”
“No,” Kit said, striving for patience. “I seldom go to bed with people because I seldom meet anyone I really want to go to bed with. The fact that he’s a man isn’t what matters.” Too late, Kit realized he had said too much.
Rob let out a low whistle. “You’re . . . fond of him, then?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to deny it, but based on the look on Rob’s face, that would be pointless. And Kit had spoken dismissively of Percy once tonight and didn’t want to do it again. “Yes, not that it’s any of your business. And that’s all I wish to say on the matter. Now, if all you’re going to tell me is that your mother left you a mysterious message that required all your friends and your mother to think you were dead, then I suppose I’ll just take myself off to see your mother.”
“I wouldn’t do that, old friend. She might not be feeling particularly hospitable. You’re taking the news much better than she did.”
Kit took a sip of the tea that Rob had placed beside him. As always, Rob had added too much sugar. Kit winced.
“If it makes you feel better, I didn’t mean for you to think I was dead. Not at first, at least. It was just that I thought you were dead. The broadsheets got that wrong, if you recall.”
“Bugger.” The broadsheets Kit had been shown while in prison had been a confused jumble of hearsay. A few days after Kit’s arrest, another robbery had occurred in roughly the same part of the country and which ended in the highwayman being shot dead. Details of the two incidents got jumbled, and as always, nobody seemed able to keep highwaymen’s identities straight, so the papers had reported that Gladhand Jack had died. At the time, Kit assumed that Rob was dead and decided that Gladhand Jack would die with him.
“It wasn’t until much later,” Rob said, “that I realized you were alive.”
“Where did you go?” Kit asked. “You can tell me that much, surely.”
“France,” Rob said, wrinkling his nose. “If I never set foot on a fishing boat for the rest of my life, it’ll still be too soon.”
“Did you finish whatever you set about to do?”
“No, I have not,” Rob said, staring at the fire. “But I’m afraid I’ll need to.”
There was a grim determination in his tone that took Kit back to the first months they had spent on the road after their lives went to shit and neither of them could even see straight for the anger and sorrow. It made the hairs on the backs of Kit’s arms stand on end.
Rob let out an abrupt laugh. “You’ve really fucked things up with your gentleman, though. My God, it reminds me of when Jenny threw all your linens into the garden. What did you do that time?”
“I let the dog into the house, and he ate an entire ham,” Kit said, smiling despite himself. “I still don’t know whether Jenny was more upset about the lost ham or the sick dog.”
Rob laughed again, and the firelight shone onto his face. There were lines that hadn’t been there a year before, and it looked like it had been a long while since he had a decent night’s sleep or a full meal. He looked rawboned and weary.
“Your old rooms on the third floor are empty,” Kit said. “I boxed your things up and put them in the attic, but I’ll help you get them down tomorrow.”
“Are you still letting every vagrant and vagabond in greater London have a bed for the asking?”
“Only vagrants and vagabonds I like and trust,” Kit said, smiling into his tea.
“Does your gent count in that lot?”
“Do I like and trust him? I like him,” Kit said. “Can’t trust him.”
“Good.”
“He came to me a month ago and asked me to do a job for him,” Kit said. “I couldn’t, because of this bastard”—he patted his leg—“but I’ve been showing him how to do it himself.”
“A gentleman?” Rob asked in apparent disbelief. “Shagging him is one thing, but—”
“What did you think I’d do while you were off playing dead? Did you think I’d be happy to spend all day pouring out coffee? Or did you think I’d carry on like before, just without you?”
“I tried not to think about it,” Rob said. “Why are we having this conversation sober?” He took out a flask of what Kit knew would be gin and poured some into his tea. Kit covered his own cup with his hand. “Really?” Rob asked, but corked the flask and returned it to his coat. “Sober, bent, friendly with toffs. Anything else I ought to know about how you’ve been spending the past year?”
“Don’t forget crippled,” Kit added lightly, and then felt bad when Rob looked stricken.
“Is it that bad?”
Kit realized Rob hadn’t seen him walk more than a few steps. “Yes,” he said. “It’s that bad.” He realized that the words hadn’t come out bitterly, though. A month ago, he couldn’t think about his injury without feeling as if he had lost a part of himself. But now he was starting to feel like he was still Kit Webb, just with a leg that didn’t work.
“What in hell is that spider doing?” Rob said, getting to his feet and striding to the stairs. “Have you gone blind as well?” He reached up, as if to sweep away the cobwebs.
“Don’t you dare,” Kit said, getting to his feet. “Just duck your head under it as you go upstairs.” Rob turned and stared at him. “It’s just living its life, all right?”
Rob continued to look at him like he was speaking in tongues but held his hands up in surrender, and then poured them both new cups of tea.
Chapter 34
Kit woke with his entire body in outright revolt. Yesterday’s traipsing around town had done his leg no good, and he must have leaned badly on his walking stick, because his shoulder and back were in a pitiful state. He spent a full minute staring at a crack in the ceiling, dreading the prospect of hauling himself out of bed, before he remembered that Rob was back.
And then he could add a sick stomach to his list of complaints. Rob was up to something, which was pretty much his permanent condition, but this time it didn’t involve Kit. Kit could only think of a handful of reasons why Rob wouldn’t spill a secret to Kit, and he didn’t like any of them.
He grumbled and swore the entire time he washed and dressed. By the time he got to the top of the stairs, he was wondering how bad it would be to just . . . slide down, maybe. It surely couldn’t hurt more than walking down would, and would provide a bit of novelty to his day.
“There you are!” Rob called from the bottom of the stairs. Kit could smell burnt coffee and something else equally burnt—toast or oatcakes. Rob could burn anything he put his mind to. During the months they spent living rough, Rob had managed to burn soup; apparently a year of being presumed dead had done nothing to improve his cookery skills. “Had a bit of trouble with breakfast,” he admitted. “I think I’ll just go out and get us a loaf of bread. Why are you just standing there?”
“I’m trying to convince my leg that it really wants to do this.”
“Do you need a hand?” Rob asked a little too brightly.
“No,” Kit said, schooling his face to not show pain as he took that first step down. “Just go away and stop staring at me.”
“Touchy,” Rob said, but he left.
“You’re going to give Betty the fright of her life when she comes in,” Kit said when he finally mad
e it downstairs.
“Oh, I saw her yesterday when she let me in here. About two minutes after she kicked me in the bollocks and punched me in the gut. Really, you’re taking this better than anybody else.”
“I can’t believe you told Betty before you told me.”
“I came here to tell you and Betty. I just happened to see her an hour earlier than I saw you, because you were busy getting fondled by gentlemen. Who is he, by the way?”
At the mention of Percy, Kit remembered what they had done together. He had worried that it would be strange and different with a man. And, obviously, the physical act was different, which his body was still reminding him of. But at the end of the day it was getting off with someone he fancied—fancied a great deal. When he remembered Percy’s words in his ear, alternately soothing and chiding, he could almost feel the other man’s body pressed against his back.
“Kit?” Rob asked, jolting Kit back to the present. “Does he have a name?”
“Percy,” Kit said. He didn’t feel any pressing need to explain who Percy was—or, rather, who his father was. Rob was already going to think that Kit was out of his mind for getting friendly with an aristocrat, and it would be infinitely worse if he knew that Percy’s father was the Duke of Clare.
“Whoever he is, he did not look pleased with you when he left last night. People don’t much care for being referred to as unimportant.”
Kit winced, remembering his own words. But if Percy had become upset by being called unimportant, that was everything but an admission that he wanted to be important to Kit. And that thought made Kit’s heart leap with hope. He wanted to find Percy right that minute and apologize, but it would have to wait until his leg settled down.
Throughout the morning, even though it was a Sunday and the shop was closed, people stopped by as word spread that Rob had returned. By the evening there was a festive mood at the coffeehouse, with people Kit hadn’t seen in over a year coming in to visit Rob. Every time the door opened, Kit turned, hoping that it would be Percy, even though he knew how unlikely that was. Kit was surrounded by nearly everyone he knew, but the person he most wanted to see was across town, in a fine house, an entire world away from Kit.
Even Janet stopped by, a swaddled baby in her arms. He had known she was expecting, but seeing proof of it was still somehow startling. She looked well, though—tired, but plumper than he had ever seen her.
“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a job,” Kit said, taking the baby from her and cradling him against his chest. The child was an insubstantial weight, still at the stage where it seemed like a stiff wind might carry him away. He settled his hand more firmly at the baby’s back.
She gave him a dour look. “Do I look like I’ll be climbing into trees any time soon? And I’d like to know how to shoot an arrow with these in the way,” she said, gesturing at her chest. “I told you to talk to Hattie from the fair.”
Kit hummed his agreement and turned his nose into the baby’s head, breathing in the smell of milk and fresh linens and whatever else made babies smell the way they did. “What’s his name?”
“Sam. Not that we’ve got around to christening him yet.”
Hannah hadn’t been christened, either. Kit couldn’t make himself do it alone, not with Jenny in prison. And then, after everything, it was the least of his concerns. “That’s a good name,” he made himself say. “Go on and let me look after him for a bit. If he needs you, I reckon you’ll hear him holler.”
Janet, who maybe knew something about Kit’s past, or maybe just saw something in his face, or maybe just was grateful to have a few minutes without the baby, leaned over and kissed Kit’s cheek before vanishing into the throng.
Somebody produced a bottle of gin, and somebody else arrived with a stack of pies. Baby Sam still sleeping on his shoulder, Kit carefully lowered himself into a chair. The child startled slightly at the movement, and Kit patted his back, whispering hushing noises into his ear.
Betty came over with a tankard of ale. “You all right?” she asked.
“Not quite over the shock,” he admitted. “You?”
“He’s lucky I haven’t broken his nose. Has he told you where he was all this time, other than that it was a secret?”
Kit shook his head.
“I’ll tell you, I don’t like it.”
Kit stayed silent for a while, thinking only of the slow breathing of the child in his arms. “Neither do I,” he finally said. He wanted to say more, but didn’t know how to express how glad he was to have Rob back, but how profoundly uneasy he felt about it. It crossed his mind that what he really wanted was to speak to Percy; Percy, he felt certain, would understand what it was like when a thread of distrust worked its way through love. Kit imagined what it would be like to be able to unburden himself to Percy, and even for Percy to be able to do the same to Kit. It felt out of reach, miles away from their tentative alliance, miles away from what they had done together the previous night.
But he wanted it, and he thought Percy did, too. He didn’t know if they’d manage it, but Kit intended to try.
Chapter 35
It was beginning to occur to Percy that highway robbery was only going to be the beginning of his life of crime, because he was also going to need to dip his toes into the world of kidnapping. He wouldn’t put it past the duke to attempt to keep Marian from Eliza. Spiriting her away was not the problem—even as loud and inclined to wriggle as she was, she could be concealed under a cloak and then—well, Percy hadn’t the faintest idea what one did with children, even if one acquired them by more traditional means than kidnapping.
“You’re admirably portable,” he told her. “We at least have that working in our favor.” She responded, as per custom, by making a noise that sounded like “fffff” and squeezing his finger in her fat little fist.
“Yes, quite,” he agreed.
Percy had sent the nursery maid back to bed and could hear her soft snores through the closed door. He could simply walk out of the house with the baby in his arms and be halfway across town before anyone even noticed the child was missing. He would probably even have time to stop in his rooms and fill his pockets with a handful of valuables.
They could live off that for some time, if he could figure out how people lived in an ordinary sort of way. He could ask Kit how one went about hiring rooms and acquiring food and milk. He was extremely cross with Kit at the moment but didn’t doubt that the man would have no problem being an accessory to kidnapping—not under these circumstances, at least. How very humbling, needing to ask for lessons in how to live like a normal person.
Eliza made a rude noise, and Percy raised his eyebrows. “Yes, terribly common, I quite agree,” he said, feeling ashamed at the prospect of plunging his sister into obscurity. Because at the very least, even the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Clare and Lady Marian Hayes ought to live like a lady, not as an anonymous orphan in a shabby set of rooms in some backwater where they would never be discovered.
After returning the baby to her cradle, he began assembling a collection of items for Collins to sell. Three brooches, his least favorite snuffbox, and an ornamental sword that was so badly balanced, it annoyed Percy even to look at it. He didn’t know what kind of price he’d get for those items, and couldn’t even recall what he had paid for any of them in the first place, but he had the sense that they wouldn’t go terribly far in keeping him in the manner to which he had been accustomed. He added a sapphire ring, a set of jeweled dueling pistols, and a small golden looking glass.
It all fit in a small satchel with room to spare, and his apartments were still filled with trinkets and baubles. How much of it did he really need? He had reconciled himself to the loss of his least favorite snuffbox, but what about the other five? He didn’t even like snuff. And how many rings did a man need? He had a dreadful certainty that the answer was zero.
“My lord?” asked Collins when he found Percy kneeling before a small mountain of glittering objects.
>
“Do you happen to know what it costs to hire a decent set of rooms?”
“My lord?” Collins repeated, this time with a note of alarm.
“I will soon find myself in reduced circumstances,” Percy said carefully. “I’ve put aside some items that I believe I can do without. Do you happen to know how one goes about selling things?”
If Collins thought this an ignorant question, he didn’t let it show. “Yes, my lord. Am I correct in assuming that my lord and his father—”
“You can speak freely, Collins. And you might as well sit down.”
“Is the duke cutting you off?”
“Not yet,” Percy said, because that much was true. “But I thought it would be best to be prepared.”
“Very wise.”
“It’s a secret, Collins.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“You ought to know that—” Percy swallowed. This was harder than he had anticipated. “You might not wish to remain in my service. Some unpleasant truths are about to emerge. I’d keep you on, but for your own comfort, you may wish to begin looking for another post.”
“I believe the customary course of action is to go to the Continent, my lord.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Collins’s cheeks went dark with embarrassment. “If one fears prosecution for the sort of activity that might be described as—”
“Ah,” Percy said. “Quite.” If Collins thought Percy was about to be prosecuted for sodomy, that was all to the good.
“We can be on the packet to Calais before nightfall, my lord.”
Percy gaped. “If my ship is to sink, there’s no reason for you to be on it. I can find you a place with a respectable gentleman, Collins. People have been trying to poach you off me for years.”
“No, thank you, my lord.”
“Collins—”
“If you wish to dispense with my services—”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Percy said hastily.
“If I may make a suggestion, perhaps my lord would be cheered by dressing in something other than dirty riding clothes? Those breeches would be enough to put anyone in a melancholic frame of mind.”
The Queer Principles of Kit Webb Page 18